Verbal pyrotechnics

Donald Trump has been confused, confounded and consternated since Vice President Kamala Harris succeeded fumbling, bumbling Joe Biden as the Democrat party’s candidate in the November election. Trump had designed his campaign to defeat Biden. Energetic, domineering Trump, 78, viewed lower key but occasionally feisty Biden, 81, as an easy target. Trump was elated when he stumbled and failed to engage Trump in their disastrous June 27th televised debate.

Democrats who had urged Biden to quit earlier in the year, stepped up pressure, arguing that the US and the world could not endure another four years of Trump. Biden claimed only he could defeat Trump. On July 13th, Trump was lightly wounded in the ear when Thomas Crooks fired an AR-15 type rifle at him during a televised campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state. Crouched down and shielded by secret service agents, Trump rose, a trickle of blood on his face, raised his fist, and cried, “Fight, fight, fight.” The near miss gave Trump a momentary boost in the race for the White House. Two days later, at the Republican party’s nominating convention, Trump named as his vice-presidential running mate J D Vance, who briefly served as junior senator from Ohio.

Vance was a curious choice. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his single mother and grandparents who had moved to Middletown in Ohio from Kentucky’s poverty-ridden Appalachia. He served in the public relations section of the marines in Iraq in 2005 but saw no fighting. He received a BA in political science from Ohio State University in 2009 and took his law degree from Yale University where he met his wife Usha Chilukuri, the daughter of high achieving Indian immigrants. Vance converted from lax Protestantism to devoted Catholicism.

During his political life, he initially joined the “never-Trumpers” but after announcing his Senate candidacy he aligned with the Trumpists and apologised to Trump for earlier criticisms. Vance belongs to the hard right wing of the party and opposes key liberal policies, including a woman’s right to choose whether to bear a child and gun control. He argues that childless women and families are aberrant and selfish. He seeks to end US military aid to Ukraine. While his views coincide with Trump’s professed positions, Vance is likely to alienate Republican centrists and moderates.

After nearly three weeks of insisting he would remain in the race, Biden announced in a July 21st letter posted on social media that he would end his bid for a second term. Harris was his instant successor. Democrats had no time to lose debating over a new candidate with the election only three months plus away.

Harris hit the ground running. At 59, she is not only nearly 20 years younger than Trump but is even more energetic. She is ready to take on Trump and Vance as individuals and politicians advocating controversial, regressive policies. Trump had been urged to scale down his rhetoric and project moderation while Biden was the Democratic candidate, but Harris forced him to revert to his usual verbal pyrotechnics.

He began by criticising her record as a California prosecutor, district attorney, attorney general, and senator. As a liberal/progressive she advocated gun control, federal legalisation on legalising cannabis, a woman’s right to choose, and environmental protection, and called for investigations into police brutality. Since she was also tough on crime, Trump accused her of taking a harder line against Black than White offenders.

When this approach did not affect her fund-raising or reduce attendance at her rallies. Trump resorted attacks on her as a woman. This is risky. His choice of Vance has raised objections among Republicans as he has spoken of women who have not borne children, like Harris, as “cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” For Vance, Harris’ care of her husband’s two children from his first marriage would not qualify her as a mother. Misogyny is widespread among Trump’s core constituency, which is comprised of under-educated, disaffected males who resent educated women who get ahead in life.

Since Harris’ mother was Indian, Trump has accused her of emphasising her Indian heritage while ignoring her Black Jamaican father. Trump said she was the “first Indian- American senator.” By adopting this approach, Trump has managed to alienate Asian and Black citizens and people of mixed race. He has repeatedly mispronounced her first name, Kamala, and called her a “lunatic” with a low IQ.”

Last week in a radio interview, Trump claimed Harris’ appeared awkward when meeting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his recent controversial visit to Washington at the invitation of Republican lawmakers. The Washington Post reported Trump as saying, “You can see the disdain. No. 1, she doesn’t like Israel. No. 2, she doesn’t like Jewish people. You know it, I know it and everybody knows it and nobody wants to say it.”

This is a brazen lie. She is married to Douglas Emhoff, who is Jewish and his daughter, her-stepdaughter, Ella posted a fundraising link on her social media for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Pro-Israeli zealots may consider Emhoff a “bad Jew” like Bernie Sanders who is highly critical of Israel.

Having agreed to debate Biden on September 10th in an ABC televised event without an audience, Trump argues this arrangement was cancelled when Biden exited the race. Trump now calls for a debate on September 4th in Pennsylvania on right-wing Fox news with spectators. Harris insists on the September 10th debate. Trump says if she does not show, he will turn it into a Town Hall where he will star. Harris contends the September 10th date arrangement holds and she will be on hand to reply to questions even if he is absent. Harris cites Trump who said he would debate her at “any time, any place” but who shifted to “one specific time, one specific space.”

Photo: TNS